Supposedly, the unexamined life is not worth living. That's at least what Socrates said.

Communism

In addition to the reasons of why communism would not work listed below, the point that we are all human must be emphasized. Communism could only really work if everybody cared about the greater good and put other people’s lives above our own. If given the choice, people would need to be 100% unselfish and altruistic if communism were to achieve the goal it originally set out with, to have everybody equal. However, based on the fact that we are all human, this is impossible. Humans are highly prone to selfishness and when it comes to a life or death situation, I have no doubt that most people would rather save their own lives (and those of their friends and families) rather than worry about another stranger’s. And it is not just a life or death situation. For example, if a family was living in very poor conditions, they would want to work themselves out of debt to feed themselves and their families. They would not be working so hard to help somebody that they do not even know. It’s a fact of life.

A proponent of communism would use pretty words to describe what life would be like under that system. “Communism would ensure that everybody would take care of each other and be equal. Nobody would be favored over anybody else.” This sounds like an amazing idea but the problem is that each individual is different and differences will always lead to some kind of inequality. Some people would be talented at basketball, others would be more talented at drawing, etc. Being talented in different aspects of life will cause jealousy and hatred in some people and therefore the only way to ensure equality for all is to eliminate all differences between people, that is if we were to take equality to the extreme. There have been numerous books and movies on this topic and we have read and seen enough of them to know what kind of society this would be if equality were taken to the extreme. Brave New World, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, Equilibrium, The Giver, etc. From a totalitarian government controlling all aspects of society to taking medication to eradicate all sense of emotion, we would be living in a terribly gloomy and dull world. Not only that, but taking a pill to get rid of all feelings (in the movie Equilibrium) or giving all of the memories of pain and happiness to one person (The Giver), the societies in both cases pretty much eliminated everything that makes a person human. Without emotions, we live just to continue our existence, and a life like that is not worth living at all.

Because a lot of these stories are science fiction and therefore unlikely to actually happen, in essence, this is what communism does. If everybody is equal, differences are discouraged. Individuality is thrown out the window. This leaves no room for human growth and creativity and therefore no progress. Without progress, and without growth, we humans will just stay in the same place, and that’s harmful to everybody no matter how good your intentions were in the beginning.